EPT
To refresh your memory, 4 players were tied with 3-2 records heading into the final week of play. Boxer faced Stay[HyO] in a rematch in which Stay had taken the first game. Boxer pulled through with a win however, and was lined up to face Qoo)Max, who had won his own match against Oversky.
For a description of the first two games, check out the live thread where DoubleStormIII gives some good play by play (he will have 10000 posts before anyone at that rate):
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=15745
The final two players then started a best of 3 series to determine who got the fourth seed in the next StarLeague.
Boxer (t) vs Qoo)Max (z)
Crowd Prediction: 95% for Boxer.
Game 1: Nostalgia
Another StarLeague without Boxer? Somehow that just doesn’t seem right, but Qoo)Max had his eyes on the prize. To succeed in the challenge league, zvz skills were a must, and his strong play against his zerg brethren helped Max make it this far. Boxer, however, presented a far different and more challenging obstacle.
Boxer opened the game at the top of the map in the eleven o’clock position, while Max spawned at seven. Although his overlord headed in the right direction initially, a drone emerged from Max’s base early on, scouting counter clockwise around the map. He took his natural followed by a pool, while Boxer built up two barracks in which two marines soon came forth from. He sent his first two troops to try and take care of the scouting drone, but he was forced to retreat from Max’s first eight zerglings.
While Max consolidated his hold on his natural and teched to lurkers, boxer threw down two factories and began making vultures, as well as putting his machine shops to work on both upgrades. He headed down the map with 10 marines and his first four vultures and tried to sneak those vultures past the zerg sunkens and into the main base. Two vultures perished in the attempt, but the two that survived made life difficult for Max as they laid mines behind them, detonating in the midst of pursuing zerglings, and boosting the kill counts into double digits.
Although he had managed to reduce Max’s ling count, Boxer still had morphing lurkers to deal with, so he mined up the bridges outside the zerg base and started a CC to take his own expansion. In the meantime, Max brought his overlords to the front of his base so his lurkers could clear the way for the rest of his troops. Boxer used this slow process to his advantage, repeatedly using his small vulture group like a sniper, assassinating zerglings while avoiding the spines of the lurkers. Boxer by this time had his expansion running, but Max was steadily building up with upgraded lurker/ling and hive tech, which gave him gland upgrades for his lings and a defiler mound.
Boxer, now with an MM army numbering in the thirties and a fistful of tanks, moved to the middle of the map and set up position. Before he had a chance to take a breath, Max was on him, lurkers and lings crawling over his troops as they stimmed and fired to get them off. For a minute it looked as if the zerg offensive would fail, but Max astutely repositioned his lurkers before all of his lings died which allowed him to rip through the tanks and remaining marines. Despite the loss of his entire standing army, Boxer expanded to twelve, however this forced him to rally his troops beyond the safety of his bridges in order to cover both chokes.
Armed with defilers, Max advanced with his growing lurker/ling army, now vitamin enriched with a +2 armour bonus. What followed was a constant barrage of zerg troops that slowly eroded the terran defence, pushing boxer back to his chokes. Max used this advantage to take both the 5 and 3 expansions, while boxer tried to fortify his position while building up a wing of wraiths. Max continued his assault, now mixing in ultralisks to the mix. With no attack upgrade they didn’t pack quite the punch as a +3, but with their +4 armour Boxer had a difficult time killing them with his meagrely upgraded 1-1 rines. Boxer managed to pick apart some of the drones at various expansions of Max with his wraiths, but this harassment was far too late as Max ran over Boxers defence at his natural and razed his main. With no way to stem the bleeding, Boxer was forced to tap out.
Max > Boxer 1:0
Game 2: Mercury
Boxer @8 opened with a two barracks opening, and his scout found Max quickly at the 11 position. Max had elected to get a hatchery before pool, and this quickly caused problems as Boxer rallied his marines to the zerg choke. Max began a sunken colony, and started on his zergling production, but by the time he had 6 zerglings, his sunken colony was in shambles and Boxers marines more than powered their way through the zerglings. If you blinked an eye you missed it, this game was over in 5 minutes.
Max < Boxer 1:1
Game 3: Requiem
Boxer (@9) started with a two barracks to two factory build in this third game, attempting an early marine harass but not gaining any advantage. Max expanded to his natural, and then extended his creep to his choke with numerous sunken colonies while teching to lurkers. His mobility was severely limited when Boxer laid mines in front of his base with early vultures, and this ended up costing Max as tanks quickly followed the early vults.
Building a bunker and some turrets, Boxer solidified his containment of Max, sending streams of MM reinforcements up the map. Max made the switch from lurkers to mutalisks, and as well he expanded to the eleven o’clock expansion. Boxer continued to push his tanks up to clear the path of sunkens, while Max micro’d his mutalisks, attempting to pick off the tanks one by one. At one point he headed to Boxers main base, where there were no turrets for defence, but he ran from a small group of MM. Boxer made him pay for that mistake as he unseiged his tanks and rolled into the zerg main after destroying the natural. Max threw every moving thing in his base at the army, but Boxer triumphed in a blaze of gunfire. Without expanding Boxer managed to wreck havoc on Max to win the game and the series.
Max < Boxer 1:2
The first game of this series was great, with both players showing some great skills. Max lost the second due to some poor timing and the third game he just couldn’t escape from his base. Boxer advances to claim the fourth seed in the StarLeague while Max will try his luck in the duel league.
Tomorrow I will write up a post on the upcoming Duel League, the groupings, format and participants.
Mani~
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